MEDIA ADVISORY: Secretary Detzner to Host Flor500 for Native Wildflower Planting

Event is part of the Flor500 project’s efforts to promote Florida’s 500th anniversary and the state’s native landscape

Tallahassee, Florida –

Secretary of State Ken Detzner will be hosting the Florida Wildflower Foundation and Florida artist Xavier Cortada, of Florida International University’s College of Architecture and The Arts, for a native wildflower planting in Tallahassee. The event is part of the Flor500 project’s efforts to promote Florida’s 500th anniversary and the state’s native landscape.

The Wildflower Foundation will provide complimentary packets of Coreopsis lanceolata seeds to be distributed at the planting ceremony. The wildflowers being planted are plants that would have been prominent in Florida when the Europeans arrived in La Florida 500 years ago.

The Flor500 project team plans to select wildflowers for each of Florida’s 67 counties. 500 Florida artists are being invited to depict 500 native wildflowers. Students from 500 schools are also invited to create wildflower gardens and to dedicate them to one of 500 historical figures identified on the Flor500 website, www.flor500.com. Other participants are encouraged to commemorate the 500th anniversary by growing native wildflower gardens at home, and in the process help reduce drought and improve biodiversity.  Planting information is available at http://flawildflowers.org/planting.php.

Flor500 is a participatory art, nature and history project that marks the moment when Florida history changed forever in 1513, and gives a glimpse of what the state’s landscape was like 500 years ago. The project was created by FIU’s College of Architecture and The Arts’ Office of Engaged Creativity to commemorate Florida’s 500th anniversary in 2013. Flor500 is led by the Office of Engaged Creativity’s director and artist-in-residence Xavier Cortada who will be handing out a portion of a titled drawing of the Coreopsis lanceolata to the first 80 people who receive a wildflower seed packet.

DATE:            Thursday, March 22, 2012

TIME:             10:00 a.m.

LOCATION:    R.A. Gray Building
                      500 South Bronough Street
                      Tallahassee, FL  32399